This is the first Valentine’s Day I have spent single in eight years.
Eight. Years.
This means I spent 80 per cent of my 20s in one failed relationship after another. I was 21 or so the last time I was single for this over-commercialized, over-romanticized excuse of a holiday. (In case you can’t tell, it isn’t my favourite holiday to start with.)
I mean, it’s going to be another day for me. Wake up, have coffee, write, go to work, down more coffee, come home, have rum, write, sleep. With critter cuddles in between. Story of my life. This was a revelation that occurred to me at work tonight, sweeping around classroom desks as I contemplated when exactly I was last single for Valentine’s Day. Yep. College. I was young, naïve, desperate to be loved and still completely messed up from my childhood.
A lot has changed since then.
I think often about what I’d say to 14-year old me. The one still silenced by the sexual abuse, who feared for her mother and siblings, and who was numb to everything around her. But 20-year old me? Man, I don’t even know where I’d start. I was a wreck at 20. That was around the time I started drinking. My first relationship was when I started smoking. Because post-sex cigarettes and smoking under neon lights was for some reason rebellious then. Driving around until two or three in the morning, listening to the same old songs about leaving this town and breaking free. Dreaming. Scheming. Late bar nights, Wednesday karaoke nights, house parties and whatever else was in that haze of innocence and rebellion.
That’s what I was about when I was 20. Rebelling. Being that girl who wore ripped jeans, leather and showed up to 8:30 a.m. college classes still partly drunk or hungover. Maybe one or two hours of sleep. (God damn, how did I do that?! I’m WAY too old for that now.) I was the girl who didn’t need a boyfriend. I didn’t need to constantly be going on dates or hooking up or worrying about the latest boy drama. I didn’t have any. And it was glorious.
I rocked singlehood at 20. I spent quiet evenings in my favourite restaurant, eating, drinking coffee and reading a book while watching the hockey game on Saturday nights. Or at home, writing my upcoming bestseller (haha…) or reading. Or out for coffee with friends or chasing that next great story for our little college newspaper.
So, what is it that changed? I often ask myself that. How did I go from that girl, to these toxic and miserable relationships, staying way too long with the wrong men and emerging from it all at 29-years old as only a shell of who I used to be?
I’ve been questioning this since leaving my marriage back in 2017. I spent so much time with these men, and yet for so much of that time I still felt so desolate and alone. They were temporary highs; like the cigarettes, like the booze, like the weed. They were wrong turns completely sidetracking me from my life goals, yet I thought it was what I needed at the time. It wasn’t. It was what I wanted, but what I needed was much more profound, much deeper and personal.
What I needed most was the relationship with myself. To love myself. To heal the scars and wounds from my childhood. Even while I was in therapy off and on for those years, I was still making bad choices and exhibiting self-destructive behaviour. Those men were distractions from the root of my issues. The online dating post-marriage was still a distraction. The one relationship I was in was a distraction. The common thread here is that I fall back on temporary highs and bad habits to numb pain.
I’ve forgotten how to be in a relationship with myself. It’s still, after all this time, the one thing I need. I’ve cut back on drinking. I’ve quit smoking again as of last month. What I need to focus on is learning to be single again. I miss the version of myself who could spend Saturday night drinking coffee in a restaurant alone and be completely shameless about it. Back when I didn’t need bars, bright lights, and loud drunk people in order to not feel alone. Back when I was loud and proud about being single and not needing a man.
But how to get back there? How to find a version of that at 29-years old?
From a World of Buzz article in 2017.
I’m starting with small changes. I’ve deleted all my dating apps. No more online dating. My focus this year specifically is my writing. Getting the first installment of the “Edge of Glory” series done and released.
Going to the writing conference last weekend was big for me. It was enlightening, and reminded me of why I started writing, why I keep doing it, and who I am as a writer. I am coming back into that part of my self-identity. Much of it was lost in the chaos of my marriage. In my depression. But it’s truly the one thing that keeps me afloat, mentally and emotionally. I feel like getting back to who I am as a writer will bring me back to who I am as a single woman. Maybe even emerge as a better version. Stronger. More confident. It needs to be the root of the relationship with myself.
It’s midnight; officially Valentine’s Day. I’m ringing it in as I should be. Writing this, posting it, having a rum and Pepsi, and hanging out with my dog and cats at home after work. Having leftover veggie chow mien (homemade!) for supper. Listening to Maren Morris “Bummin’ Cigarettes”, as I feel this song really describes my life in the last few years.
I’m not lonely; I have amazing friends and family around me. I have my critters. I don’t regret leaving behind the relationships I did. It was what I had to do. At the moment…I’m content with being single. It’s actually nice to be able to sit at home, in my PJs, eat leftovers and write without someone complaining that I don’t want to spend this ridiculous excuse of a day with them.
So, here’s to us; the single ones still finding ourselves. The ones who know who they are and won’t settle. The ones who never want to fall in love (and really, why would you?). The ones who are still looking and hoping (you’re much braver than me!). Wherever in your single life you find yourself, this is a toast to you, at a time of year when relationships and romance get shoved down our throats more so than usual. Celebrate in a way that is uniquely you, or don’t celebrate at all. I’m not in the latter party – I am having a celebration for rediscovering this relationship with myself. It hasn’t been easy, but nothing that tears apart your soul and leaves you picking up the pieces ever is.
